Di Wep Ronpet Nofret (or, Happy New Year, Egypt-style!)

Happy New Year!

According to the Kemetic Orthodox Festival calendar (and every calendar I'm aware of still used for these purposes), we're well into a new year. Wep Ronpet, or the ancient Egyptian new year, occurred for various organizations any time between mid-July and mid-August. (My own temple celebrated on August 3, with our annual week-long festivities). So, happy new year, or di wep ronpet nofret, as the ancients would've put it. May it be a year of all good things.

We're currently in the midst of a holiday called the Wag Festival. Want to know more about the ancient Egyptian Day(s) of the Dead? I wrote about Wag Festival in more detail here.

How's the Daybook coming?

I'm so glad you asked!

So far, it's shaping up to be a very good year here in The Ancient Egyptian Daybook land. We have an artist! I'm very excited to be able to show you the work of Megan Zane, a 2009 graduate of the Columbus (Ohio) College of Art. You can see some of her past work at Big Bad Studios. Currently, she's working on images for the perpetual-calendar part of the Daybook, images you'll be looking at day in and day out for years at a time.

First, Megan sent me a set of mockups for possible renderings of the month's image, and then I chose one for her to complete as a full-page image (it's #2 in the sample series below, if you're counting):

Then, once we'd talked out what we wanted the final image to look like, she went to town. I couldn't be more delighted with this image of the goddess Nut as the Celestial Cow lifting Ra, the sun, into the sky.

Daybook website open - pledges still accepted!

So maybe now you're even more excited about the Daybook. Maybe you know other people who might want one. Remember that we've got an official Daybook website now. For a limited time until release (still slated for mid-December), people can get in on three of the Kickstarter-tier pledge levels. Once the Daybook is available for purchase, all these pledge perks are gone, so if you know people who'd like to get in on this and missed it in March, send them to the website! You can also check out our updates there.

Once again, I thank you, from the bottom of my ka, for the ability to spend my 2013 working on this project for you. It's going to be excellent, and it wouldn't be happening without your support. More news to come!

Thank you! Michelle, of all the Kickstarter projects I've started, I am most excited about the final product of this one. And I promise that it's not just because I've only started one such project! :)